1. Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to online storage systems. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to application programming interfaces (APIs) for data synchronization with online storage systems.
2. Related Art
Data on network-enabled devices is commonly synchronized, stored, shared, and/or backed up on online storage systems such as file hosting services, cloud storage services, and/or remote backup services. For example, data such as images, audio, video, documents, executables, and/or other files may be stored on a network-enabled electronic device such as a personal computer, laptop computer, portable media player, tablet computer, and/or mobile phone. A user of the electronic device may also have a user account with a cloud storage service that allows copies of the files to be stored and/or backed up with the cloud storage service. The cloud storage service may further transmit the copies to other electronic devices of the user and/or other users who are authorized to access the files, thus synchronizing the files between the cloud storage service and electronic devices.
Unfortunately, data synchronization between an electronic device and an online storage system is typically associated with limited interaction and/or information related to the synchronization state of the electronic device with the online storage system. For example, the electronic device may use a natively installed client application to create, delete, modify, and/or copy files with the online storage system. Alternatively, a third-party application on the electronic device may use an application programming interface (API) to perform reading, writing, copying, and/or other file-based operations with the online storage system. In both cases, the electronic device may lack information regarding the states associated with such file-based operations. For example, the client application and/or third-party application may be unable to identify an error associated with a failed file transfer and/or detect a newer version of a file on the online storage system. As a result, the user of the electronic device may experience reduced functionality and/or problems with synchronizing to the latest and/or correct versions of data from the online storage system.
Consequently, data synchronization between electronic devices and online storage systems may be facilitated by enabling access to synchronization states associated with the synchronization from the electronic devices.